Oil companies conduct seismic surveying to lower risk and to reduce costs of locating and developing new oil and gas reserves. Seismic surveying is, therefore, an up front cost with intangible return value. Consequently minimizing the cost of seismic surveying and getting quality results in minimum time are important aspects of the seismic surveying process.
Seismic surveys are conducted by deploying a large array of seismic sensors over a terrain of interest. These arrays may cover over 50 square miles and may include 2000 to 5000 seismic sensors. An energy source such as buried dynamite may be discharged within the array to impart a shockwave into the earth. The resulting shock wave is an acoustic wave that propagates through the subsurface structures of the earth. A portion of the wave is reflected at underground discontinuities, such as oil and gas reservoirs. These reflections are then sensed at the surface by the sensor array and recorded as seismic data. Such sensing and recording are referred to herein as seismic data acquisition. This seismic data is then processed to generate a three dimensional map, or seismic image, of the subsurface structures. The map may be used to make decisions about drilling locations, reservoir size and pay zone depth. One step in the processing of the seismic data is the integration of survey data and other information with the seismic data. For instance, the position of each sensor, such as longitude, latitude and elevation, must be integrated or associated with the seismic data acquired by that sensor. Conventionally, this integration is performed at a processing facility after the seismic data has been acquired in the field. However, this post-acquisition step of data integration may be susceptible to errors, which may reduce the accuracy of the generated map and negatively impact decisions made using the generated map.